Archive for January, 2018

Night Light, also known as “Blue Light”, is a new feature introduced since Windows 10 Creators Update, which makes your display use warmer colors at night to help you sleep better and reduce eyestrain. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to enable or disable Night Light mode in Windows 10, even when the Night Light setting is greyed out.

Select the Display tab on the left side. You can then toggle the “Night light” button to On to enable it, or Off to disable it.

If you enable the Night Light feature, you can configure it further by clicking the “Night light settings” link under the toggle.

There, you can adjust the color temperature by dragging the slider, and set Night Light to kick in when the sun sets and it will automatically get disabled during sunrise. When it’s done, you can click the “Turn on now” button to immediately enable the Night Light feature.

Can’t Enable or Disable Night Light?

Night Light settings is greyed out and you can’t disable or enable it? Here is a quick workaround to resolve this issue. Follow these steps:

Open the Registry Editor and navigate to the following key:HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\CloudStore\Store\Cache\DefaultAccount

Expand the DefaultAccount key, then right-click and delete the following two subkeys:

Unable to change keyboard language in Window using hotkey? Is there any way to set keyboard shortcuts to quickly change to a different language / keyboard layout? Here’s how to enable a keyboard shortcut for changing the input language in Windows 10.

Mouse cursor is too small? How can I change the color of mouse pointer to make it easier to see? When you’re playing a game, you may find the mouse cursor is way too small for your screen. Here are 3 simple ways to change mouse pointer size and color in Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

How can I know whether a disk is a solid-state drive (SSD) or hard disk? Is there a way to check if I have a SSD or HDD without having to open the laptop itself to see what’s inside it? Here are 2 easy methods to find if your drive is SSD or HDD in Windows 10/8/7, without using third-party software.

Method 1: Find If Your Drive is SSD or HDD Using Disk Defragmenter

Simply press the Windows key + R keyboard shortcut to open the Run box, type dfrgui and press Enter.

When the Disk Defragmenter window is shown, look for the Media type column and you can find out which drive is solid state drive (SSD), and which one is hard disk drive (HDD).

Over time, files on your hard drive get scattered and they are spread to discontinuous clusters. This can increase the time required to read / write files. To have your computer run more efficiently, you can defragment the hard drive that will rearrange the files so that they occupy contiguous clusters. In this tutorial we’ll show you 5 ways to open Disk Defragmenter in Windows 10.

Method 1: Open Open Disk Defragmenter via Cortana

Simply type defragment in the Cortana’s search box. You can then click the “Defragment and Optimize Drives” search result to open Disk Defragmenter.

Method 2: Open Open Disk Defragmenter via Run or Command Prompt

Press the Windows key + R shortcut to bring up the Run box, type dfrgui and press Enter to launch Disk Defragmenter.

You can also access Disk Defragmenter by running the dfrgui command at Command Prompt.

Assigned Access is a useful feature in Windows 10 that allows you to restrict a local standard user to use only a single app that you choose. This makes it easy to create an Assigned Access app for use in a kiosk computer scenario. In this tutorial we’ll walk you through the steps of setting up Assigned Access in Windows 10.

How to Set up Assigned Access to Restrict Local User to One App in Windows 10?

This feature is available only in Windows 10 Pro, Education, and Enterprise. To set up Assigned Access, you must be logged into Windows 10 using an administrator account.

Press the Windows key + I to open the Settings app. Navigate to Accounts > Family & other people. Click the Set up assigned access link at the bottom of the right pane.

When you see the Set Up Assigned Access screen, you’ll be prompted to choose an account and an app. To begin, click Choose an account.

Select the standard account for which you want to set up Assigned Access.

After the user account is selected, click the Choose an app option.

You’ll see a list of built-in apps or third-party apps installed from Windows Store. Just pick a single app for Assigned Access.

When you’re done, restart your computer. After you log in with the Assigned Access account, the app you assigned to that account will start automatically in full-screen mode. You’re unable to switch or close the app. To exit the account, simply press Ctrl + Alt + Del and you’re out.

That’s it! When you no longer need Assigned Access on Widows 10, just bring up the Set Up Assigned Access screen again and click the “Turn off assigned access and sign out the selected account” link.

How would you use Assigned Access? Let us know in the comments section below.

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“I just bought a DVD movie. When I tried to play it on Windows 10, I received a warning that the DVD was purchased in region 2, my computer DVD player was set for region 1, and I needed to change the region. I’ve never come across this before. Please help!”

Most commercial DVDs have a region code that ties the DVD to specific regions of the world, as a measure of copy protection. If a DVD’s region code doesn’t match the current region code of your DVD player, you’ll receive a warning that you need to change regions in order to play the DVD. The following tutorial will show you how to change the region code of your DVD player in Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

Note: The region code for a DVD player can only be changed five times. The fifth time you change the region, your DVD player is permanently locked to the last region you set.

How to Change DVD Region in Windows 10 / 8 / 7?

Press the Windows key + R to open the Run box. Type in devmgmt.msc and press Enter.

When the Device Manager window opens, expand DVD/CD-ROM drives. Right-click on your DVD player and then select Properties.

Click on the DVD Region tab. Select the region in which you want to change to and click OK.

How to enable write protection for a disk drive or set your volume read-only? How can I prevent a hard drive from being formatted? In this tutorial we’ll show you how to set a particular disk or volume read-only in Windows 10 / 8 / 7, without using any third-party software.

Since Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, the old “Share with” option in Windows Explorer’s context menu was renamed to “Give access to”. This option lets you quickly share folders with other users on a network. However, if you never use this feature, you can remove “Give access to” option from the right-click context menu in Windows 10 File Explorer.

In the Registry Editor, browse to the following key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Shell Extensions

Right-click the Shell Extensions key in the left pane, select New -> Key. Name it Blocked.

Select the new key Blocked, and then right-click blank area on the right side, select New -> String Value.

Name the new String {f81e9010-6ea4-11ce-a7ff-00aa003ca9f6} and leave its data value empty as shown below.

Restart File Explorer or log out and then log in to see the change. Now the “Give access to” option is removed from the right-click context menu in the File Explorer. If you want to restore that option back, just open Registry Editor and delete the Blocked key you created.

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Do you have any trouble with flickering on the monitor when playing games? Most of screen flickering issues can be solved by adjusting the monitor’s refresh rate. The refresh rate refers to how many times per second the screen refreshes the image on it. Increasing the monitor’s refresh rate should reduce screen flicker, which results in less strain on their eyes. In this tutorial we’ll show you how to change monitor refresh rate in Windows 10 / 8 / 7.

Note: The refresh rates that you can set for your monitor are determined by the capabilities of the Graphic card and monitor.

Part 1: Change Monitor Refresh Rate in Windows 10

Right-click an empty area on the desktop and select Display settings.

This should open the Settings app and go to the Display tab. Click Advanced display settings at the bottom of the right pane.

Click Display adapter properties.

This will open the Monitor and graphics card properties. Go to the Monitor tab and you can select a higher or lower refresh rate and click Apply.

Part 2: Change Monitor Refresh Rate in Windows 8 / 7

Right-click an empty area on the desktop and select Screen resolution.

Click on Advanced Settings in the bottom right.

When the Display adapter properties window opens, click the Monitor tab, and then select a Screen Refresh Rate from the drop down menu.